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IBM and National Geographic have teamed up for a very cool project, and 
you can participate/benefit...the perfect birthday present for the 
bio-geek in your life.

Great web site with an interactive map of human migration.

http://www5.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/journey.html


Eric Siegel
Executive VP
    Programs and Planning
New York Hall of Science
47-01 111th Street
Queens, NY 11368
esiegel at nyscience.org

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Researchers are aiming to learn more about how the 
Earth was populated by collecting and analyzing genetic samples from 
100,000 people around the globe.

The five-year Genographic Project, being announced Wednesday, will use 
sophisticated laboratory and computer analysis of DNA to figure out the 
patterns in which people moved from one part of the world to another. 
It is sponsored by the National Geographic Society and IBM.

``We're trying to figure out where we came from. It's a very simple 
human question,'' said Spencer Wells, the project's director and a 
population geneticist known for groundbreaking work in this field.

Researchers plan to collect blood samples from 10,000 indigenous people 
-- those whose ancestors inhabited a land before Europeans or other 
outsiders arrived -- at each of 10 sites around the world. Because 
indigenous people trace their ancestors back to the same land over 
considerable time, their DNA contains ``key genetic markers that have 
remained relatively unaltered over hundreds of generations,'' project 
scientists said. That makes their genetics reliable indicators of 
ancient migratory patterns.

Most of the work that's been done so far has been based on genetic data 
from about 10,000 people, Wells said. That has helped establish that 
people came from Africa within the last 60,000 years, but little is 
known about what migratory routes they followed off that continent or 
what happened over the last 10,000 years, he said.

Genetic fingerprints help establish the patterns, enabling scientists 
to trace variations in genes to their origins, he said.

For instance, scientists are not sure how the Americas were first 
populated, said Ajay Royyuru, the lead scientist for IBM. The first 
people may have come from Siberia and eastern Asia, or they may have 
been Europeans migrating over a frozen north Atlantic, he said.

``The goal of the project is to learn the journey that our ancestors 
traveled and hopefully answer the question of who we are and how we 
happened to be where we are,'' he said.

The project is also inviting participation from the general public, for 
a fee. People may buy a kit for $99.95 (plus shipping and handling) 
that will allow them to scrape the matter from the inside of their 
cheeks and send it in. They will receive information about their own 
migratory history, and their data will be included in the master 
database. Participants will receive updates on the project and other 
materials as well.

All information in the master database will be anonymous and 
researchers promise to keep individual identities confidential.

Wells said he is not concerned that the database might be skewed with 
samples from people who can afford to pay nearly $100 to participate, 
saying even nonrandom data will help scientists understand migration 
patterns.

Part of the proceeds will help fund the Genographic Legacy Project, 
which will support education and cultural preservation efforts among 
participating indigenous groups.

Project organizers said the result will include scientific papers, 
educational programming and a public database that can serve as a 
resource for scientists and researchers.

Blood samples will be collected from indigenous people by researchers 
based at 10 sites around the world: Shanghai, China; Moscow; Tamil 
Nadu, India; Beirut, Lebanon; Philadelphia; Johannesburg, South Africa; 
Paris; Melbourne, Australia; Minas Gerais, Brazil; Cambridge, England.

The $40 million is being funded in part by the Waitt Family Foundation.
Eric Siegel
Executive VP
    Programs and Planning
New York Hall of Science
47-01 111th Street
Queens, NY 11368
esiegel at nyscience dot org

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